"You Deal With What You Live In" -- a Karin Wells documentary
In Canada, authorities look to tear down tent ci
"It ain't pretty," said the big black letters on the turquoise tarpaulin in Victoria. "It's tent city!"
This past summer, Victoria's tent city made national headlines. 100 people had camped on the courthouse lawn for almost a year. But in July, the province got an injunction to shut it down. Victoria had to create a lot of emergency housing very quickly.
In September, at the meeting of the Union of BC Municipalities, mayors from all over the province - Kamloops, Mapleridge, Chilliwack, Nanaimo, were all talking about tent cities. The encampments seem to be spreading like noxious weeds.
"The biggest challenge," said Rich Coleman, B.C.'s deputy premier, "is how to stop these tent camps in the future." The mayors of Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles would probably tell the Minister, "you don't."
U.S. west coast municipalities started out reluctantly accepting tent cities. But many have now gone further and incorporated tent camps into their housing strategy. Tents and shacks have become "affordable housing."
Fifteen years ago, Portland, Oregon created the first legally sanctioned homeless encampment in the U.S. It began as Camp Dignity and grew into a community run by, with and for homeless people. Today, it is known across the United States as Dignity Village.
It wasn't born without a struggle.
Karin Wells's documentary is called "You Deal with What You Live In."
Click the button above to hear the documentary.